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Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech sovereignty’

politico.eu

131–140 of 507 posts

Re: Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech sovereignty’

#131
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly there are very capable and smart engineers in France, and I don't blame the country ambition to develop its own solutions, but the SSII mafia (or how are they called now?) is killing innovation. It's a very top to bottom decision process (starting from the Government/MP), with big bucks involved, and very little understanding of how to drive these tech projects, all the way to the bottom. What I don't unders…

> there are very capable and smart engineers in France I would not be so sure. I looked at the IT salaries there (both as a permanent and as a contractor) and it just doesn’t make sense to stay there when you could earn way more money elsewhere in Europe.

I know plenty of really capable and smart people in France that doesn't want to leave the country. Living somewhere is not just about salary, and quality of life as a software engineer is quite good in France.

Re: Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech sovereignty’

#132
post #14

It's no surprise the French government is involved in this. They love these moonshot projects that aim to create the French X for any X that is a successful service by an American company. Qwant[1], launched as "The French Google" with a focus on privacy, serves 10 million searches a day (a ridiculously small number). No one has heard of it, no one uses it, and it's another project with a dream of restoring France to…

One problem that I think is somewhat related to the top-down, bureaucratic situation is that whatever big project they try to do is a copy of something else.

They didn't want to build Google / Facebook / Whatever before those existed. Instead, they want to build a "French Google". Qwant is an example of that. Whatever they're trying to accomplish with Orange in the cloud business is just a "French AWS".

During the lockdown when everyone was using Zoom, some politician was unhappy that EU countries would depend on foreign technology. Solution? Build a European Zoom! I find this kind of ironic, seeing how Skype used to be European...

Re: Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech sovereignty’

#133
post #89
post #14

It's no surprise the French government is involved in this. They love these moonshot projects that aim to create the French X for any X that is a successful service by an American company. Qwant[1], launched as "The French Google" with a focus on privacy, serves 10 million searches a day (a ridiculously small number). No one has heard of it, no one uses it, and it's another project with a dream of restoring France to…

Honestly there are very capable and smart engineers in France, and I don't blame the country ambition to develop its own solutions, but the SSII mafia (or how are they called now?) is killing innovation. It's a very top to bottom decision process (starting from the Government/MP), with big bucks involved, and very little understanding of how to drive these tech projects, all the way to the bottom. What I don't unders…

Thats not really specific to France. Any large government contract in any country will go to bodyshops like Accenture, Cap Gemini, IBM, TCS etc. The difference is that the French government keeps thinking that innovation is a top-down process that can be managed like you would manage an aircraft program or a nuclear power plant

Re: Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech sovereignty’

#134
post #14

It's no surprise the French government is involved in this. They love these moonshot projects that aim to create the French X for any X that is a successful service by an American company. Qwant[1], launched as "The French Google" with a focus on privacy, serves 10 million searches a day (a ridiculously small number). No one has heard of it, no one uses it, and it's another project with a dream of restoring France to…

> The kind of buddies that lead companies that have so little understanding of cloud technologies that they went with OpenStack[2] to build this new world leader in computing.

Do you have arguments or is it just a blank criticism? OVH for instance is built in part on OpenStack, what's so very wrong with it?

Re: Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech sovereignty’

#135
post #100
post #14

It's no surprise the French government is involved in this. They love these moonshot projects that aim to create the French X for any X that is a successful service by an American company. Qwant[1], launched as "The French Google" with a focus on privacy, serves 10 million searches a day (a ridiculously small number). No one has heard of it, no one uses it, and it's another project with a dream of restoring France to…

Europe: Politicians want "something great", so there is a verdict that "something great" will be developed. A huge budget is provided, but it must be ensured that the usual suspects (public or semi-public research institutions) get most of the share. The whole project structure becomes fragmented beyond believe, nobody cares about commercial success. The project fails, but not in the eyes of the researchers, who clai…

Basically. In Spain you can get such cheque, but it would be 30K and your chances of getting 1/10 lower.

Re: Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech sovereignty’

#136
post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not how it works, not everyone wants to move country just for a (way) better salary.

There's definitely an IT brain drain in France due to low salaries, very few people of my former school actually work for a french company anymore, they almost all went somewhere else to get a better pay. In the post-covid world of increased remote working, the brain drain will likely increase tenfold since developers won't even have to leave the country anymore.

I think there is a bit of a brain drain, but it's also compensated by great engineers from poorer countries (Italy, Romania, Poland etc) migrating in

If remote works, it won't really be a brain drain anymore, because they'll be paying taxes and spending their money in France :)

Re: Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech sovereignty’

#137
This is so sad. As a European I would love to see some Internet giants created. Everybody says it's because we don't have homogenous market and so on. But my hunch is it is something different: Existing European companies are much more protected than their US counterparts, or even their UK counterparts. Think ThomasCook - would have been definitely been "saved" like TUI in Germany. That doesn't happen that much in the US I believe. Instead new comers are generated at a higher rate creating completely new markets, think Tesla, Facebook, amazon etc. That entire life cycle of companies dying and being newly born seems somewhat skewed over here.

Re: Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech sovereignty’

#139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's definitely an IT brain drain in France due to low salaries, very few people of my former school actually work for a french company anymore, they almost all went somewhere else to get a better pay. In the post-covid world of increased remote working, the brain drain will likely increase tenfold since developers won't even have to leave the country anymore.

I think there is a bit of a brain drain, but it's also compensated by great engineers from poorer countries (Italy, Romania, Poland etc) migrating in If remote works, it won't really be a brain drain anymore, because they'll be paying taxes and spending their money in France :)

Is there any reason why the engineers from poorer countries will emigrate to France instead of the better-paying countries?

Re: Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech sovereignty’

#140
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree completely: as a European, I find these projects pathetic. We need the humility to learn something from the US and create an environment and a framework in which private companies can thrive, instead of being constantly dragged down by bureaucracy, regulations, and a legal-judiciary system eager not to help but to assert its power.

Learn to pay your programmers properly.

Meh that's honestly not the number one problem in france. I'd even say it's a competitive advantage. Not everyone is willing to expatriate for salary, you can get really great engineers for half or even a third of what they'd be paid in SV
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